The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it has committed $12.6 million to humanitarian causes in 2024, with part of the funds allocated to specific countries affected by terrorism.
According to Dr. Sintiki Tarfa-Ugbe, Director of Humanitarian and Social Affairs at the ECOWAS Commission, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, and neighbouring countries impacted by terrorist activities have received $4 million in humanitarian aid.
Tarfa-Ugbe spoke in Abuja at the start of a two-day strategic engagement workshop with heads of government-owned television stations in West Africa, organized by the ECOWAS Commission in collaboration with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
The workshop seeks to enhance collaboration between ECOWAS, the media, and key stakeholders to promote peace, prosperity, and democracy among member states, aligning with the vision of “ECOWAS of the Peoples: Peace and Prosperity for All.”
She said: “We know that our countries continue to face a number of challenges: conflict, terrorism, climate change, and food insecurity.
“But our organization, the ECOWAS Commission, continues to accompany our member states to strengthen their resilience and recovery to some of these challenges that they continue to face.
“As I did in my presentation, I highlighted that this year, the ECOWAS Commission has committed $2.6 million to support persons of concern within our region, those that are displaced, refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants.
“And also, you know that our region, especially the Sahel, continues to battle the terrorist attack and a lot of victims of terrorism.
“And so for our humanitarian response to victims of terrorism, $4 million has been committed to provide support for the frontline states of Nigeria, Mali, and Burkina Faso, and also to the contiguous countries that are bearing the spillover effects of terrorism. Of course, you know, Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Cote d’Ivoire.
“Despite channelling the grants through governments, the commission has maintained effective oversight of their implementation.
“Our implementation is guided by a robust ECOWAS humanitarian response mechanism. And part of that response mechanism has an important element, which is the monitoring and evaluation.
“The implementation of our project is between the government of Togo, the Civil Protection Agency, and the World Food Program. So you see, we have a solid kind of agreement with the member state and the partners.
“And what we do is that when we give grants, we also go for monitoring and evaluation missions. So far, we have gone to four countries. We have gone to Togo to really see on the field and speak to the beneficiaries of those programs.
“So we have gone to Togo; we went to the northern part of Togo, where we saw that our assistance has made them able to, you know, get funding to cultivate more areas of land, which they couldn’t do as individuals, and also to access fertilizer to grow their crops.
“We have also seen in some of the countries where they’ve been giving cash assistance to, you know, strengthen their livelihood support, either they are small-scale businesses, so that they can recover. This is very important for resilience building for the communities.
“We have gone to Gambia; if you see one of my presentations also, we’ve provided food and nutrition support in the Gambia and flood assistance support in the Gambia, all amounting to about $900,000.
“And our team was there; they saw people being given cash assistance. You know that in all the countries this year, it has been very, very difficult because of the food and nutrition situation.
“We have also been to Liberia to see, you know, some of the responses that we provided.”
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